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THE TREATMENT OF women incarcerated in Magdalene Laundries – and the level of State involvement in these Church-run institutions – has been highlighted yet again this month. There was disappointment among survivors and relatives of those kept in the Laundries when it was announced that a State committee’s final report into the matter would be delayed until the end of the year.
To reiterate the urgency of revealing the inter-departmental findings, the Justice for Magdalene advocacy group last week distributed some redacted statements of women detailing their lives in such institutions. (The group claims that there was State involvement in the operation of the Laundries as places to send women considered to be “problem girls”, due to poverty or pregnancy outside marriage for example.)
Samantha Long’s mother Margaret Bullen was placed in Gloucester Street (now Sean McDermott Street) Laundry c.1967 and died 35 years later, never having been released into society and her own home. Margaret died of an illness known as Goodpasture Syndrome, a disease of the kidneys and liver – one of the causes is exposure to industrial-strength chemicals such as those used in the Laundries.
Samantha made a lengthy statement to the interdepartmental committee, led by Senator Martin McAleese, about her mother’s life. Margaret Bullen had a tragic start in life: she was born in a mental institution in Grangegorman, Dublin to a mother who already had six children, Margaret being the youngest. Margaret was sent home to Kimmage to live with her siblings and father, where she remained until she was three years old. At that point, Margaret’s brother was sent to Artane industrial school and Margaret and her sister closest to her in age sent to the notorious High Park industrial school and Laundry in Drumcondra. That, as Samantha says of her mother, “was the end of her and the outside world”.
A second statement sent to Senator McAleese’s committee from a former Laundry inmate who remembers Margaret and her sister recounts how Margaret suffered fits as a young child but that they were ignored by the nuns there (then known as the Sisters of Charity of Refuge, now the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity).
Margaret appears to have been moved in her early teens to a special school called St Teresa’s in Blackrock, after she was certified mentally unfit for education, but fit for work. Her daughter Samantha says in her own statement:
She was assessed at age thirteen as being mentally challenged because on the day that they measured her, they said that she had an IQ of fifty, which I dispute after meeting her, even after all those years of institutionalisation.. And I think that if you’re hungry and tired from your slavery, your IQ wouldn’t be very sharp, or your skills on any given moment mightn’t be sharp. You would be probably just pulled into this room – “now we’re going to measure your IQ” – so even the shock of that wouldn’t, you know, you could shut down.
At roughly the age of 16, Margaret was sent to the Magdalene Laundry at Gloucester Street. The exact time and circumstances of her move there are not clear because Samantha and her sister are still waiting on full records to be supplied to them on their mother’s past.
She became pregnant – twice – with Samantha and her twin sister Etta, and later with another daughter, while officially under the care of the Gloucester Street nuns. The circumstances of these conceptions are again shrouded in mystery but Samantha says her conversations in later life with her mother when they were reunited led her to believe that Margaret had been the victim of sexual abuse and predators several times.
There was no education, no education and I, you know, I honestly believe for a long time she didn’t know how she got pregnant, she just knew that somebody hurt her once and then she had babies. I really believe that. She didn’t make that connection, I know that for sure. She was no, she didn’t have a boyfriend, let’s put it that way. And that’s the politest way that I can say that.
Some of the more harrowing details of Samantha’s testimony recount how her mother was denied society, education, wages and other basic rights for most of her life. This extract recalls Samantha and Etta’s first meeting with Margaret in the Gresham Hotel when they were 23 and had traced her as their biological mother. (Samantha and Etta were adopted by a loving couple in Dublin and later moved to Sligo in childhood.)
Margaret was only 42 at the time but looked much older. She was carrying a handbag but it was completely empty, because she didn’t own anything nor did she have any money. Samantha recalls:
And, she was just lovely, and she was asking extremely innocent questions like, she, it was the first time she ever had coffee and it was very exciting for her to have coffee and she hadn’t seen brown sugar before either and obviously in the Gresham there was brown and white sugar cubes on the table and it was all very fancy to her. And she was just overjoyed to be there and absolutely wowed by everything.
She looked, she looked like a pensioner. I couldn’t believe she was forty-two, I kept looking, I kept looking into her face to find a forty-two year old and I couldn’t, because she had the face of hard work, that face that you see in so many women that have just had to work too hard and have never had a rest and have never had anyone to take care of them or tell them to put their feet up, and who have just, just worked too hard. Because, as I said on the radio a few years ago, this was slavery and I don’t use that term lightly and I’m not an emotive person but slavery is a form of work for which you get no pay and you can’t leave and these were the white slaves of Ireland and they were never emancipated. And nobody stood up for them until now, until you guys (Justice for Magdalenes) did.
Samantha Long was asked by Senator McAleese’s commission what she would like the State to do to redress any wrongs committed against the women in Magdalene Laundries. She answered:
I would like the state to apologise for keeping those young girls behind bars, literally and figuratively. I would like the church and state to apologise for forcing them to do slave labour.I would like the church, the state and society to redress their reputations and apologise for keeping them down, for denying them education, freedom, money, their babies and their lives, all of those things.
And I would like that the circumstances that they find themselves in, through the missing pieces that the rest of us get in life, because they had no education, so how could they make it?
They were sitting ducks, keep them down, keep them unaware of their rights, keep them without money, keep the roof over their head, feed them a little bit, keep them alive, just enough for work. Give them their wages now, give them their wages.
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I would like to sincerely thank Susan for her sensitive treatment of our birth mother Margaret’s very sad life story. That’s on behalf of my twin sister Etta,our adoptive Dad Eamonn & brother Len , late adoptive Mum Anne, and indeed the families we have gone on to create ourselves with our wonderful husbands and children.
We are saddened by what happened to dear Margaret, and we have tried to turn anger and pain into voices and solutions, which is why I contributed to the RTE Primetime programme last week, and shared my 27 page testimony with The Journal today. Thanks to all for your comments, please log on to justiceformagdalenes.ie to see how you can add your voice. I am independent from any organisation, but have been proud to work alongside Justice for Magdalenes in making Margaret’s voice heard from beyond the grave.
Sincerely, Samantha Long
Just read the interview you gave…
I cried all the way through, still have wet cheeks.
Its absolutely horrific.
Hugs.
Samantha, I have just read the full interview and it has brought tears to my eyes. I remember the Magdalene girls in my home town in the 40/50s. They were marched out each afternoon across town guarded by nuns. They always kept their heads down, avoiding any eye contact with the populace. A friend of mine, whose mother was active in those days in organising days out for some of the girls, tells me that it was common practice to farm out 14/15 year old as maids to certain families in the town.
In those days, if you we’re in any way naughty, the words Artane and Letterfrack were often used to bring you up short and focus the mind.
Sorry…. Were
Thanks, Sam. Just to correct the URL, it should be http://www.magdalenelaundries.com (or justiceformagdalenes.com will get you there, too). The more people who speak out like Sam, the more swiftly we can move to justice.
Appreciate you writing all this Samantha. I was hesitant to read it as I knew I would be saddened and upset, especially as a parent of young children
Sweet Jesus.!! When will these perpetrators get the justice they deserve!!!!
Horrifying….
The poor woman…
Im lost for words, its just pure evil to do that to someone…..
Good on you samantha for highlighting this and i wish you luck in seeking justice for your mom…..
Absolutely Lost for words I am in Medugorje I weel lite a candle four you and your mum may God bless her xx
Absolutely heartbreaking.
What strikes me about all of this is just how very UNCHRISTIAN the Church has been.
Symphysiotomy (mutilation of women), slavery, Illegal incarceration, clerical pedophilia, torture & sexual abuse of children and the mentally handicapped – all carried out through the collusion of the Roman Church and the Irish State who have further colluded in the continued coverup and denial of these heinous crimes. What a proud and pious nation we are!
Is there any answers to the corrupt POWERS that BE? History continues to repeat itself….
Surely keeping slaves is a crime. Why haven’t charges been laid?
Why indeed!
Because they continue to slither their way out of it.
Collectively, We as a nation should be on our feet demanding justice.
Apparently the Magdalene Asylums were private institutions, owned and managed by private, albeit religious, companies. The State says it couldn’t intervene in them because of their private nature. That’s what they are saying TODAY as well!
In Summary: If you were consigned to a Magdalene Asylum by your family, or the local parish priest, or by the St. VdePaul or the NSPCC/ISPCC or the Legion of Mary** you lost all you legal and Constitutional rights. The State did not intervene – nor, for that matter, did Fianna Fail, Fine Gael or the Irish Labour Party. Many of the people consigned to those hell holes were victims of sexual violence – incest within families, and children pregnant by sexual violence. These crimes were hidden behind the walls of those places.
Whereas the Industrial Schools mostly targeted families from the poorest sections of society the Magdalene Asylums did enslave women and girls from most classes of society – this way they kept Ireland’s reputation as being a pious and Holy Catholic Ireland in the eyes of the world. In fact we had a Gulag system that rivaled Stalin’s Russia when you take the confinement of those with mental difficulties into account.
** These are the people/groups who regularly instigated actions, including court actions, against families in order to have their children consigned to the Industrial Schools
What a sordid little Republic we became when we ‘achieved’ Independence!
It’s funny Andrew, one of my brothers has always said that the worst thing to ever happen to this country was England leaving. You can imagine the reaction he has primarily received but when asked to explain his reasoning, he has talked of the Laundries, the treatment children received in even mainstream schools etc. Too much power was transferred to the wrong people and look what happened as a result. The worst thing about the laundries is the fact that a lot of families put their own daughters/sisters inside. My Mam said the stories about them were always known, you just prayed it never happened to you. Shame on anyone who did that to one of their own.
On achieving Independence the Irish Government started to dismantle anything with a hint of Britishness. They even got rid of the trams that graced Dublin and it’s environs. Nothing wrong with trying emphasise your own identity or culture except we wanted to emphasise some kind of social, religious (Roman Catholic) political and sexual purity! Strangely though the one thing left untouched was the architecture of containment (Laundries, Mother & Baby Homes, Mental Hospitals and Industrial School). Indeed there were more children in Industrial Schools in the 26 counties than in the whole of the UK after independence. One Mother & Baby Home was so dismal that half the babies died in the first year of its existence (1930)
A gruesome and unnerving fact is that most people colluded with the system – those that didn’t collude pretended not to notice … Was the fight knocked out of the Irish after Independence?
the State and Church needs to be separated. I would be all for the removal of whatever article is in the constitution which gives the catholic church special creedence. iv recently read two books called “Kathy’s Story” relating to Magdalene incarceration, and “Banished Babies” which is about the industry of exporting babies for adoption which was run by various organisations within the catholic church.
both very good reads but they sickened me. while I have not been a practising catholic for a long time these books have lead me to turning my back completely on what I now see as a poisonous dangerous institution warped by power and greed ( although I dont believe every priest,nun or brother should be starred with the same brush). our society has moved on, our Constitution, which up to now has protected the church and aided them in denying and covering up the mental and physical torture dished out to women and children, needs to change.
Sorry for long Rant :-)
Plus 1
I may be wrong but I think that the article giving the church a special place has already been removed.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
One way or another it paints a horrible picture of Irish society.
Andrew do you have information to prove that saint Vincent de Paul played a role in the incarceration of these poor people in the laundries?
It was a good and considered rant so rant on.
@ Tony Hegarty. I Do.
One of the gateways to the Magdalene Asylums was through the Industrial Schools. There was an architecture of containment – an array of interdependent institutions (completely independent of State control apparently ) — schools, hospitals, mother-and-baby homes, adoption agencies, and Magdalen Laundries– that obscured the less desirable elements attached to a number of interrelated social phenomena, including poverty, illegitimacy, and infanticide. http://bit.ly/QssHP3
A significant part of the machinery by which children were sent to the [Industrial] schools lay in the agencies by which a child was brought before the court. For this purpose, a miscellany of persons and agencies, often part-time or unpaid and seldom trained, had grown up. These included: the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC), Gardaí, school attendance officers, and also Vincent de Paul Society members, parish priests; or children’s officers from the local health authority.
http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/05-02.php
and
http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/03-18.php
The Society of St. Vincent De Paul was intimately involved in this architecture of containment – they actually helped set up one Industrial School in Cork. And on leaving the Industrial Schools some children were illegally transferred to the Magdalene Asylums.
Unfortunately, Janice, only one if those reads is the truth: Milotte’s ‘Banished Babies’. Kathy O’Beirne was never in a Magdalene laundry, and much more of her story was falsified. No records could be found to support her claims, and believe me, we tried. It’s a shame as her book/story could have done so much to help further the cause.
There just aren’t any words to express how horrified and angry I am. So these nuns kept a slave until 2002 and no one did anything about it?!?!? 2002!! The most frightening thing is that there are thousands more stories like this that we will never get to hear. These were concentration camps by a different name.
she died in 2003 cannot believe that something like that was allowed to happen as recently as 2003!!!
In total agreement.
What a failing on society’s part.
We all need to think about what WE need to do, the conversations WE need to have, the dark secrets WE have to brave exposing, if WE really want to ensure it can’t happen again. We are all in this together.
Vatican puts secretary on trial for nicking a few papers but actively connives to protect these black clad perpetrators of slavery and child molesters. Shows what an obscene institution the Catholic Church is.
so angry right now my mum was in a so called convent in Newry i was adopted/sold affected me al my life now found “records” havent been to see them yet oddly my mum was39 when she had me in that holy place i hate the catholic church and all it stands for my adoptive mother often beat me to an inch of my life locked food away and ate the alterrails great and good respected woman and all the while tormenting me yea shes still alive but lost me on my 18 th birthday the last time she hit me im 50 this year catholic my arse but it all made me what i am today a good mum and grand mum and a very strong and determined woman and most of all not a street angel and house devil
The more that is revealed about Ireland’s dirty secrets and shameful past, the more you come to realise what poisonous cruel and uncaring country it really was (is). How could so many people in Ireland especially ordinary people, families, politicians, police, doctors, teachers etc stand by and allow this to happen and in some cases actually partake in the activities which the catholic church and the Irish state subjected many of it’s own and most vulnerable citizens to? The various religious orders who ran these gulags and the people at the top of these orders should all be held to account for their part (dead or alive) in what are crimes against humanity, these people ran de facto prison camps in which many thousands of innocent young men and boys, vulnerable women, very young children and many disabled people were subjected to the most horrendous conditions and inhumanity, they were tormented and tortured both physically and mentally and many of them were raped, buggered and sexually abused by clergy, lay people, other internees and even state officials. Many were incarcerated for reasons beyond their control or for reasons that today would be classed trivial in some cases and unfortunate in others but not punishable by life in a prison!. They were then used and abused as slave labour, sex slaves and in some cases live subjects in medical experiments for which the fees went to the nuns! Doctors mutilated women in the name of religious dogma in our hospitals right up to the 90′s! The victims were treated like animals and all of this at the hands of so called Christians! Religious orders who have the temerity to include words like ‘charity’ and ‘mercy’ in their names. Hypocrisy would have suited them better as would cruelty and evil. Then there is the part played by the Irish state, what did the politicians of all parties down the years do about these disgraceful and inhumane concentration camps? NOTHING! They must have been aware of what went on in these camps, what about the Gardai? What did they do?, oh hang on, they helped round up these ‘wayward’ women and ‘ferrel’ children who so tarnished the good holy catholic name of dear little Ireland and we couldn’t have now could we! De Valera’s utopian gaelic speaking catholic idil needed to be protected at all costs and in the Theocracy of Ireland that meant anyone who didn’t obey or adhere to the strict diktats of the Roman master and his dog collared black and purple clad stormtroopers in the servile puppet state. Home rule truely did become Rome rule. The politicians, police, judiciary, medical and educational ‘professionals’ all followed what the archbishop said and all went along with it as did the majority of the Irish people. What happened to Samantha’s mother is just the tip of a very nasty iceberg and her story is just one of many thousands whose lives have been ruined or in some cases stolen from them by the religious orders and the subservient Irish sate and it’s ‘Vichy’ style officials who all played a part in this heinous act of terror on some of the most vulnerable of it’s own people. It’s time the victims were given justice and the guilty punished for their crimes, if that means the reputations of now dead ‘leaders’ be they religious of political are besmirched and even ruined in the process then so be it, no stone should be left unturned in giving these innocent victims back their reputations alas for many it too will be posthumous, like Margaret Bullen they went to their grave without ever having lived their own life just that of a slave at the hands of evil and blind obedience by a state who had become so inthralled to a religious ideology that they allowed it to corrupt and devalue the lives of thousands and even now there are those who still refuse to acknowledge the wrongs and admit guilt for what they did. Accountability is a word you don’t associate with Ireland but it’s time that changed and it’s time that the people responsible for so much suffering were finally brought to book.
Last year alone in Ireland, 2,300 children were taken into care. The HSE has outsourced fostering to a non statuary agency Fostering First – a commercial enterprise – Plus tout change, plus c’est le même chose i.e nothing has changed
Well said. Just read margaret’s story. Heartbreaking. Such mind numbing cruelty
…and we still let these people own and run our schools.
THIS.
No Trish we don;t . Our polititions let these people run our schools. So no change there.
Sisters of charity my arse. Close them down, jail those responsible, take all their money off them and give it to their victims. The church is a force for evil in this country.
Just read the full interview… Such a tragic waste of human lives… Shame on the Nuns who broke the spirit of vulnerable people and shame on the state for supporting it….
As long as the Catholic Church has a say there will be discrimination against women.Period.
I see no difference with what these religious people did and what Josef Fritzl did to his daughter. I’m of the opinion this is worse.
Measuring the two, is pointless. Both are horrid crimes of the same nature. Only difference is, Fritzl is now getting what he deserver, while those barbaric individuals who tortured children in this Country, continue to walk free. Lowlife Savages should be hunted down, and locked up for ever.
An evil empire did this.
It’s capital is in Rome
The emperor is Darth Benedict
In the 90 year history of this state there’s very little to be proud of when it comes to our government and the church. Truly horrifying.
Our country is a democracy and our government is all of us. The State clearly is less well placed than parents to care for children than parents are. Last year as I understand it, 2,300 children were taken into care, and the number climbs all the time.
We need to get real, an evaluate ourselves. Do we instil a sense of pride in our people? Do we always acquiesce (civil servants)? Do we continue to behave as a nation who has been subjugated?
Stopped reading shortly into the article as I just found it too upsetting. Again, and I always ask this, who the hell can defend the Catholic Church in this day and age? Any person who practises that religion is implicitly supporting the cover up of this abuse. It’s up to those people to vote with their feet. The day every single church in this country shuts because they can’t afford to open them I’ll celebrate. Then people can practice real faith if they wish, not listen to a bunch of hypocrites instructing them on salvation.
When people make such blanket, unqualified accusations they are 2% right and 98% wrong.
Pot…kettle Tom?
Tom Newman: apparently you didn’t read my post above. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” So what were those 98% doing, if not aiding and abetting evil? If you’re drawing your 2% from that 11-yr old report on paedophilia in Ireland that shows about 2% of paedophiles were clergy, you might be partially right (perhaps 2%?)
But paedophilia wasn’t the Church or Ireland’s only problem. Slavery, torture, the blatant abuse of women’s and children’s rights, child trafficking, physical and mental cruelty, to name just a few, are also on that list.
So now, do please tell us what the 98% are doing or were doing to right that; or to now apologise and effect restorative justice?
We need the seizure of the assets of the religious orders responsible. When crime is talked about in Ireland we seldom read or hear about the massive human rights abuses, including the torture of women and children, carried out under the tutelage of the Catholic Church. Instead we read and hear about inner city petty criminals.
As long as the bulk of Irish people give the Church the lifeblood of money through following rituals such as christenings, confirmations, communions, weddings and funerals within it all of the condemnation of the church is completely pointless. If we truly condemned the church people would simply boycott it completely and that is what should have happened to force the Church to take notice and do something. It is hypocritical for the bulk of our society to completely condemn it, and refuse to attend weekly mass, yet still celebrate some of the most monumental milestones in their life within it. I understand that the Church and the faith itself are separate, but you don’t have to have involvement with the Church to be a Catholic.
RIP Margaret who I won’t forget anytime soon so very very sad only good thing I can possibly take from this is that she met up with her twins they got some time together before Margaret Passed xxxxxxxx RIP to all the lost souls that haven’t been able to tell their story xxxxx
There are no words that can express the horror and outrage of what these women suffered. Just like no sum of money will ever compensate them or their families for what they have suffered. And the biggest outrage of all is that no one will be criminally prosecuted for their part in destroying so many lives. .
#Heartbreaking#
How many reports do you need……
When will our goverment put up their hands and admit they got it seriously wrong…. the word sorry would be a start…. You could never compensate these women for what they suffered….
after all this we still think it is ok for the church to run the schools. Shame on us
I never going to mass again these monsters they were children babies even. I am so proud my Grandmother took in the next door neighbours children after the parents had died. She was a widow with 8 children of her own but still she took care of them I can see why
My name is Deborah Henry and I am Irish American. Have not had a mother abused nor been abused but you do not have to have been born into this holocaust to feel outrage from this mistreatment by church and state. You just have to be human. For eight years I researched, read, interviewed, wrote and rewrote a novel called The Whipping Club because I believe there should be more literature on this subject. My thoughts and prayers are with those who were abused in Mother and Baby Homes, Magdalene Laundries, Industrial Schools and Orphanages among other institutions throughout the world
And with the 2,300 children taken into care in Ireland this year. Also with all children who currently have their blood stored on a central data base for research purposes. We need to learn from the past and use that knowledge to ensure fewer children are taken into care. Respect for children would dictate that their blood was not retained on a central data base until they had reached the age of consent
@Deborah Henry. “My thoughts and prayers are with those who were abused in Mother and Baby Homes, Magdalene Laundries, Industrial Schools and Orphanages among other institutions throughout the world”.
One can’t talk about Magdalen Laundries, without also thinking about the industrial *schools* and mother and baby homes. They’re part ands parcel of each other.
Derek Lenster – who was in Protestant-run Bethany House, Rathgar, and myself, who was in the Regina Ceoli mother and baby unit, North Brunswick St. Dublin, have been fighting tooth and nail for years to be acknowledged by the government. The fighting sadly is still ongoing.
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The story of Margaret Bullen is absolutely heartrending. I hope the government pays heed to survivors of Magdalen Laundries. I must say that it was such a relief to read in the article here that the offspring of Margaret went to a good home. That is such a crucial thing for their adult emotional / mental / psychological psyches. They should hopefully have enough love to give to Margaret, who appears to have been utterly deprived.
I know some children from Goldenbridge industrial *school* who were allegedly repeatedly raped for years as children by those who had adopted them. Charming isn’t it indeed! To add salt to the wounds, they were told by the religious when they reported the abuse that they were telling lies. The audacity! They were unfortunately sent back to the same family. It beggars belief.
The voices of innocent children meant nothing to Irish society in the past. Especially not those who were used as fodder by the religious for generations in industrial schools and Magdalen laundries (when they got older).
Nobody cared about the likes of Margaret Bullen and her institutional ilk. The children were classed as products of fallen women and therefore must be punished on behalf of the erring, shameless parents, and trained up so that they would not go in the same “slutty” way as their mothers.
It was not uncommon either for Goldenbridge children – who went out with host families to come up against sexual abuse. There was no name for it then. Well… there was really, but… don’t you know, nobody then wanted to speak about the unspeakable. They came from the era of the ‘valley of the squinting windows’.
I went to Sean McDermot St. as a teenager to visit a person from Goldenbridge who had been sent there by the religious.
The person – who spent her whole Goldenbridge childhood making rosary-beads – and who is now deceased never came to terms with the life she had, from birth, in the Regina Ceoli hostel – mother and baby unit, then as a wee tot was incarcerated by the judiciary into Goldenbridge industrial *school*, and then sent to Sean McDermott St. when her child prison sentence was up.
When she left Sean McDermott St. she became homeless. So as an adult person she returned to the Regina Ceoli hostel from whence her life began. She was finally housed in the last few years of her life. It was albeit too late, the damage was done.
I’m glad that she lived though, to tell her story to the commission to inquire into institutional child abuse. I was proud to help with her statement. Because she was in a Magdalen laundry before the age of eighteen, it was subsequently taken into consideration by the Residential Institutions Board [RIRB].
I wish all survivors of Magdalen Laundries every success in their endeavours to fight the government. They, like survivors of industrial *schools* have fought long and hard for justice.
*school* = was a euphemism used by the government. The proper term = child labour camp.
I just heard through the grapevine that Australian government officials came over to Ireland to learn from us about the RIRB. They’ve accepted responsibility for the wrongdoing to children in the past. The Northern Irish government is also slowly making inroads. So… c’mon Irish politicians and get your little fingers out and sort out Mary Bullen and all survivors of Magdalen laundries.
the Nazi’s and the Catholic church had a LOT in common.
This is heart breaking. Can we be sure this is not still going on???
I can’t speak for Ireland, but we’re ratcheting back to this era in the US with current Christi-fascist groups. Wherever a Planned Parenthood of similar reproductive health clinic exists, you will find so-called ‘Crisis Pregnancy Clinics’ popping up, eager to convince frightened young pregnant women to give up their children for adoption — largely to fill up a sagging ‘supply’ market for womb-fresh infants oto feed a growing demand for same. The new Child’s Rights Referendum could very well lead down this same slippery slope (if not legislated and judiciously administered properly) in Ireland, with a whole new generation of ‘lost’ children and ‘Magdalene’-stigmatised mothers. And lest we forget, Ruhama, an NGO aiming to stop the sex trade, has several religious from the same orders who once ran Laundries on its board.
I have been told by priests who have left the clergy in the Phillipines and african countries that they left because of the child abuse going on in theircountries about 20 years ago. These stories came to me while I was in africa and asia.
Tragic.
Thank you Andrew very informative and very useful information.
Catholic Church are no more than sick sadistic bastards with out a single shred of humanity !!! If this is what they call a religion heaven help us
The Irish state are the very same as the church people need to realise this state is cruel it was then and it is now, you just have to see the 276 dead in care the 500 missing kids in the last 10 yrs to realise nothing has changed
This was the Ireland created by the close relationship of Eamonn De Valera and John Charles Mc Quaid. They became close when Mc Quaid was president of Blackrock College. It gave incredible power in state affairs to the catholic church. We know now that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The De Valera legacy has continued corruption through Fianna Fail to the present day with Haughey, Ahern, Cowen etc. wreaking havoc. Thank god at least the influence of the catholic church on politics in Ireland is much diminished.
Heartbreaking. For the love of your dear mother, who will not have suffered in vain–justice–please.
i cant believe people are disliking some of these comments which offer sympathy,…pure muppets
Those would be the haters and deniers. The same ones who don’t believe the Holocaust happened, either. Or who sent their own grannies, mothers, daughters, sisters and aunts to Laundries. DeNial is a deep river and ignorance is bliss.
People sometimes click the wrong thumb, especially if using a smartphone or ipad.
why this things happens mostly only here?!?!?…..something really stinks…….
Those who actually committed crimes should be jailed but don’t forget 98 % of clergy are innocent.
98% of the clergy are innocent ? did you fall on your f*&king head or something?
No doubt that most of the people working in these religious orders are innocent. However the teachings & distorted views of these organisations are also abhorrent & need to be brought into line with modern society & values. The views they hold are at least 2000 years out of date. I no longer want to see the church having any influence over legislation or children.
98% my arse. They might not have committed the abuse but a lot ( not all) helped to hide and sweep things under the carpet
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” So if only 2% were evil, why were the other 98% not doing something about it and stopping it?Your apologist sentiment has been tried before, and found sorely lacking. The Irish State, Church and indeed the Irish public must redress this, and address it now. It’s too late for Sam and Etta’s mum, but my mother and others are still out there, aging…waiting to be told they did nothing wrong and apologised to. Instead of apologising for amoral religious who should’ve known better, we need to apologise TO these women and stop delaying justice.
If 98% are innocent, then why did they do nothing about the cover-up of abuse being perpetrated by their institution? if 98% are innocent, then why were Magdalen laundries an established part of their organisation?
I have often heard catholics talk about all the innocent clergy and their good deeds. then I think how the same might be said of the Nazis who claim they did not know what was happening in the concentartion camps, or the Khymer Rouge who did not know what was happening, and all other similar organisations.
I don’t see how Clergy of that time would not have known they belonged to a corrupt regime
Ireland – a land of judgement, hypocrisy and abuse – the same families in charge for 100 years or more, the Church still ruling lives and land.
All WITH the consent of the population, who sat and still sit in acquiescence but do so little to effect change, except moan. Is this why such atrocities happen, time and again ?.
I find it shocking that mothers were treated like this in recent times. One knew they were oppressive years ago but this was happening up to recent times! Women were far from educated in the home and still in sway to the church. However free education was here since 1967 or so, can’t understand the prolonged abuse, surely they were due to be educated rather than sent to laundries.
The investigations into the Magdalen Laundries has not even been completer, and already the State has outsourced the care of children to Fostering First, which is not even based in this country, and is a non statuary commercial enterprise.
The reason no one will go to gaol is because the state would have to admit its involvement and would leave itself open to liable damages it was ok for them to castrate the catholic church and the Vatican but when it is standing at their own front door they choose to ignore it pit it on tne long gonger try and shew it away in the hope it hoes aesu and you can be sure any report implicating them will be swiftly twisted to absolve them of any and all blame.
Human rights violations towards children in care obviously ignored but the government had better get their legal teams to protect children in care today. The people are the masters as Michael Collins stated.
Yes the day Collins died all reason was gone and Dev was cut loose in an evil collaboration with pedophiles ! God (not the makey uppy Hebrew one) forgive them all. God in nature !
The majority of people here are outraged at what they just read. What are we going to do about it ? Are we going to march on bishops palace in drumcondra and voice how we have had enough now of their rapists their paedophiles their kidnappers and most of all their denial and lack of remorse. who is willing to do this for those who society has let down so much…..we can make a difference NOW.
I would gladly support you in that…you can contact me via twitter DM if your serious.About time some show of action was organised.
And still a motion calling on the Government to provide redress for survivors of the Magdalene laundries has been defeated in the Dáil by 75 votes to 43.
2002!!! HOLY SHIT!
I think she was left there till then because she was so institutionalised at that point that she wouldn’t have been able to live outside it.
Is’nt time the goverment & all other parties concerned took real responsabilty for their actions..
Just ask them to read all of the comments in THE JOURNAL.IE .. It’s heartbreaking & sickening that something like this was allowed to happen…
SHAME
Harrowing story and re-ignites the sadness my generation feel for those women who suffered brutality and madness at the hands of those in power.
I do think the state should apologise but not until the committee gives its report. I dont want anyone calling into question the validity of the final report. Those women deserved better and when the report is released I hope its the first of many steps to the justice they have and always will deserve!
Does anyone have information about the society of saint Vincent de Paul and their part in the running of the magdalene laundries. I’d appreciate any information available to assist my research .
Tony, the National Archives should hold Dept of Justice files on women if children remanded through the courts for various ‘crimes’ of poverty (bring found wandering without parents, found begging, etc.) and it should list who found them in that ‘state’, e.g. Vin DePauls, Crusade of Rescue, etc. A good few examples can be found in Jim Smith’s book ‘Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment’.
We’ve also found clear documentation that the Dept of Education moved children from industrial schools to Laundries.
Journal please check link to Samantha’s lengthy – comes up page not found
Some suggestions about what action people can take here;
http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/do.htm
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